I want to know how this guy knew what cavemen looked like, because seriously, is he bogarting the time-travel tech? JERK! I say we go back and get some awesome clothes to make the reenactors jealous! WHO IS WITH ME?!

You there, yes you my fine fellow, give me your shirt and I will give you THIS CHICKEN.

…btw this is likely the only time you’ll ever see me get excited about clothing so you may want to mark it on your calendars. ;)

I’m sure the cavemen (none of the prehistoric people we are talking about were women – people reproduced differently back in the good old days, until Eve came and fucked that shit up) were skinny like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Of course, it being prehistorical and them not having scales or measuring tapes, we may never know for sure.

Has this troll really lived under a fucking rock all hir life not to have heard of the Venus of Willendorf?

Anyway, cavepersons aspired to be fat, mang. You need insulation to get through the winters on those windswept steppes, and also enough flesh to sustain you in case the herds leave early and come back late.

But re: their average life expectancy being low, the thing about that is that it includes the however-many-percent that died before reaching a year of age. High infant mortality, let me show you it. If you made it to ten, you were probably making it significantly past 40.

Actually, you ought to seriously be able to tell about how much they weighed by their bones I think. Fat people are heavier and they’d be carrying more weight around, so the bones would be thicker. Might be too subtle for science, I’m not an anthro geek; but gee it seems like Bones would find out pretty quickly. (Edutainment TV style!)

And I agree that it’d be the lucky ones who were fat, though I remember reading somewhere that the average hunter-gatherer skeleton shows better nourishment than the early agricultural skeletons. So assuming the cavemen were hunter gather types probably quite a few of them.

Oh great – ANOTHER reason to be jealous of cavemen – not only did they get to wear fur, guilt-free, with no PETA activists on their case, but they were also enviably THIN. Well, as Thag said, “No can be too rich, or too thin… now pass me mastodon rib.”

You’ve said it, shapelings. Not only did they wish they wish they were fat, for those pesky winters and caves without central heating, but they worshiped fat chicks. The first piece of art we studied in my art history course? Fat chick with her boobs and belly all hanging out.

Cavepeople were probably not fat, though as someone mentioned, they aspired to be. It would indicate wealth and prosperity for your tribe. Cavepeople, or anyone living a hunter-gatherer existence (as seen in some peoples living today) rarely get fat but neither are they dangerously thin or under-nourished. You eat what you have available to stay alive and thin or fat be damned because it just doesn’t matter!

Who cares how many cavepeople were fat? What in God’s name does that have to do with NOW?

Let’s just say for argument’s sake that none were fat.

How many cavepeople used the internet? Drove Cars? Built skyscrapers? paved roads? wrote poems? penned songs? took pictures with their fancy digital cameras? Exercised on a treadmill? Spoke french? Read Shakespeare?

None? Well, shit. Tear it all down folks. Burn the books! Get out the asphalt eater and get rid of the roads!

Hee! Quickly logging on while traveling, and am delighted to discover that “fat cavepeople” can be rearranged to spell “flop, pee, vacate.” Which tickles me no end, because now I’m imagining fat cavepeople making to-do lists reminding them to flop, pee, and vacate.

hmmm hunting/gathering…
I can see it now…
Fat cave-person- “Would you like some berries? I just gathered them this morning!”
Skinny Caver-person “No! Only lean bones and and grub worms for me!”
6 months later in the throes of winter…
Skinny Cave-person “I’m starving todeath and I’m cold!”
Fat Cave-person “Should have eaten those berries…”

What I want to know is – where the thin cavepersons meanymeanheads to the fat cavepersons? Did they tell them that there where no fat apes?
Urg – the thing that people forget is that “cave”people are US – they do not represent a lesser version of us – they simply didn’t practice totalitarian agriculture. So whether they were all trim and lean or whatever else, they were human. Thus, probably both as smart and wonderful as all of us and as idiotic as this cavetroll. ;)

Not to be a pill or anything but… At what time of year was he talking about? Cavemen (or anyone who lives a subsistence-only lifestyle) would have a tendency to gain weight over the spring through fall so they could survive the winter when food was scarce.

So… As one commenter said… Let’s see the footnotes.

In my opinion — depending upon the time of year, a lot of them could be fat or just a few.

Wow. I’m thinking about it. And personally, since I’m a woman of the NOW I really don’t give a *ahem* what cave men had in the way of fat. But gee it sure seems from statues and carvings, from the general era said troll wishes to bring our minds back to, that women sure were able to become beautifully fat.

Wonder if cave men sat around the fire staring at that last piece of juicy fattened mammoth meat and kept bemoaning, “YOU eats! if Thog eats, go straight to hips.” “No, YOU eats. Me almost no fit fur wrap!”

I’m still not getting this. What, is this person advocating an all-mastodon diet? Does this person think we should go back to knapping flint and dying incredibly young?

Or does this person just think we should starve ourselves like cavepeople so that we aren’t horrible and fat? Possibly because it’s more “natural.”

What the fuck ever. I don’t get it.

And for the record, I read an article recently that talked about a cavewoman reconstruction they did, and they discussed body shape and size and caloric intake, and these were, like, cobby, barrel-shaped people who needed at LEAST . . . I forget . . . it was, like, 5,000 calories a day or something. They ate a LOT.

So were they fat? They sure as fuck would not have been modeling in Vogue, I will tell you that. And as others have pointed out, they probably developed a tendency to store fat for times of famine, which would mean that yeah, some of them probably would have had lots of fat. It’s a SURVIVAL TRAIT that MOST animals have. We have evolved away from being cavemen (“cave” men, ugh, the anthropological ignorance), but we haven’t evolved away from it completely. There have been famines throughout recent human (err, the last 2,000 years, let’s say) history. Our genetics have not had time to change to adapt to having enough.

And I don’t think they SHOULD. I think, things being as they are, we are going to need that fat-storing as a species again, probably before much longer. So, you know, I’m fine with my body doing what it was designed to do.

Yeah, pyewacketsid, “No fat cavemen” and “No fatties in concentration camps” kinda go hand in hand. People really think they’re the ultimate “Gotcha!” arguments. I think the logic is, “If there are no fat starving people, then you should be able to eat just what it takes not to starve, and only be a little fatter than them, i.e., thin!” Except for how it completely doesn’t work that way. And for how incredibly offensive it is.

pyewacketsid – a doctor once told me the same thing…minus the concentration camp thing. His logic was, I suppose, that starving would make me thin, which would enhance my quality of life so much that I wouldn’t mind starving. I’ve tried this exact technique several times and lost weight doing it, only to have it come back plus 10 pounds if I ever stray from it. STARVING ISN”T WORTH IT!

I’ve gone from 130 pounds last year to 150 this year, and I’m not freaking cold all the time like I was then. I wouldn’t want to be a skinny caveman in January. You need some reserves, damn it. There’s a reason I survived the illness I had – because I started at 200 pounds. If I’d started at “normal weight” of 130 pounds and lost 70, I’d be dead. Our bodies are made to store fat. Your caveman argument makes ours. Asshole.

I’m sorry, I have an advanced degree and I am not following the caveman/concentration camp survivor logic. Can someone please explain it to me. What is the point they are trying to make by pointing this out?

Actually, I think the Troll is accidentally making the opposite point, as trolls are wont to do.
I do remember a theory that populations that practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the more recent past were more likely to be fat as their ancestors had more recently needed to be efficient at storing nutrients.
The ‘naturally thin’ genetic variation needed more time to develop in periods of long abundance, something hunter-gatherers wouldn’t have experienced.
Because, obviously, the first famine would wipe out everyone who wasn’t storing their nutrients efficiently, so the ‘thin’ people would be selected against for reproduction.
Northern Europe, for example, not as long or efficiently agrarian (and Venus of W’s home region) would have fetishized fat as something to keep them HEALTHY, more than, say, the Indus valley, which early on was producing enough food for a large and complex society.
Just a theory, of course, but it seems reasonable.

The estimate on that article Fillyjonk linked was 5 foot 6, and 142 pounds. That’s the high end of BMI “normal”, right? So the doctor would probably tell him to go easy on the mammoth doughnuts or something. ;-)

it’s that gaining weight and being efficient with your metabolism that enabled “cavemen” to survive in times of severe famine –> diabeetus-ready genotype. being able to survive on extremely little amounts of low calorie food mean probably LIVING until the next time quality food turned up.

also, i hatehatehate the term cavemen. i’m an anthro geek. omg, most people didn’t live in caves. those that did lived there because it was ready-made shelter. tons of people lived all over the damn place in tents and other types of shelter… their belongings/remains/etc haven’t survived because they weren’t protected by a cave environment. and don’t even get me started on the geico cavemen… they look more like an australopithecine than Homo anything. rawr!

“The Caveman Power Diet increases energy, the ability to burn fat, and gets you in touch with your natural instincts. It’s not just a way to lose weight, it’s a healthy approach to making your body indestructable.”

Whenever someone trots out the concentration camp argument, I’m increasingly driven to scream, “You know all those really skeletal folks you see in concentration camp pictures? Those are the fat people. The thin people died first.”

What I usually do is ask them if they’ve ever seen film footage of Cold War era Russians queueing up for food and ask them if they noticed many thin ones standing in line. No troll has ever taken me up on that question. Funny that.

Those are the fat people. The thin people died first.
Even more likely, I think, most of the significantly fat people were probably deemed ‘genetically unfit’ and killed almost immediately. (Has anyone done research on the Nazis’ criteria for work camp versus death camp?)

Think About it? You want ME to think about it, what, FOR you? Because you, obviously, haven’t. Tell you what, why don’t go do that now and, if you manage not to sustain serious brain injury trying to force too much voltage through your underused brain, then come back and we’ll talk.

Actually, Vidya, I don’t know if that was necessarily the case back in those days. I know the Nazis were fixated with the body beautiful as part of the Aryan ideal but I don’t think fat = unhealthy was ingrained in public consciousness to the degree it is now. That’s purely speculation on my part. I’m lucky enough that the Austrian branch of my family relocated in the UK before they got into a position to find out.

And before someone accuses me of trolling (because I probably worded my post weird), I’ve actually heard people use this argument before. My response to them is usually as follows:
“I don’t see too many animals driving cars or working for pay, or too many humans still fighting for survival amidst predators and harsh elements, do you? Modern homonids have long since moved beyond the constraints of the natural world that other animals must endure. If you want to live outside of civilization, be my guest. I give you a week before you come crawling back to your high speed internet.”

Plus, BeautifulHead, I have definitely seen fat squirrels and the like. I imagine they’re just doing a good job of surviving in the urban environment and will probably make out pretty well in the squirrelpocalypse.

There are lots of animals with quite a bit of fat. Once I told my 3-year-old daughter to put some clothes on because it was cold, and she said, “It’s okay I have a thick layer of fat to keep me warm.” She had just watched a documentary about penguins. She doesn’t actually have a thick layer of fat, though, so she still had to wear clothes.

Um, I don’t want to trigger any bad memories for anyone, but don’t fat people often get compared to “fat” animals? Walruses, cows, pigs, elephants, etc. So, did these animals stop being “fat?” Or is there a hierarchy of thinness to be desired in the animal kingdom now too?

Oh my god, I love you all so much right now! I’m almost glad about the trolling when it produced a thread as funny as this one.

Wonder if cave men sat around the fire staring at that last piece of juicy fattened mammoth meat and kept bemoaning, “YOU eats! if Thog eats, go straight to hips.” “No, YOU eats. Me almost no fit fur wrap!”
AprilD – I just snorted Diet Coke out through my nose.

I saw a lionness in Tanzania who had COMPLETELY porked out on a baby zebra and had a belly practically touching the ground – I bet the other lionnesses were lying on the rocks judging her. They were probably hanging round the carcass, rolling their eyes and going “No wonder she’s so fat – she just ate like half that baby zebra – she just has NO SELF-CONTROL.”

Giraffes are definitely the top of the animal kingdom hierarchy. Legs that go on forever, big eyes with long lashes, slender necks – they’re the supermodels of the animal kingdom! I bet the hippos just cry themselves to sleep at night, wishing they could be giraffes. :rolleyes:

thegirlfrommarz we’re even then I guess because “No wonder she’s so fat – she just ate like half that baby zebra – she just has NO SELF-CONTROL.” almost made me choke on my reese pb cup snack! :D

And for fat critters I totally have a cardinal that comes to my feeder that I’ve lovingly named “Mr. Fatty Cardinal”. I even switched to seedless sunflower seeds since he seemed dis-satisfied with having to work to get them out of the shells and would toss them on the deck floor. But I guess he’s just picky, he still does it! Maybe some seeds taste better?

And for the record I too have a layer of fat like a penguin, but I’ll be damned if I’m going outside today with no clothes on :)

A friend pointed out the similarity resemblance between my portly little black and white cat and a small killer whale this week – and she was right on the button. I’ve been addressing him as My Little Orca ever since. Bless.

Back when I was on the diet-go-round, I read about one called “NeanderThin” – you only ate what the average hunter-gatherer would – i.e., meat (’cause you could kill it with a club or spear, and apparently, FIRE was a given under this plan), berries & fruit, some veggies. No dairy, since livestock weren’t domesticated, and no grains, as agriculture wasn’t invented yet.

I decided pretty quickly that, if I had been a hunter-gatherer, I would have been pretty cranky most of the time, no matter what I weighed.

That ain’t how foraging people’s diets actually work, for the record. Popular culture seems to be about 20 years, give or take, behind most scientific disciplines, and anthropology is no exception.

Of [i]course[/i] there were grains. Why, the Ojibwa people of my own region traditionally spent several weeks every year at their rice camps, canoeing up and down waterways shaking wild rice into the boat, and then doing all kinds of interesting things to it to process it into food. It was a [i]staple[/i].

Because there are no wild grains. None, I tell you! *eyeroll* Where do they come up with stuff like that? They need to watch a little Les Stroud and find out just how much vegetables/grain a hunter-gatherer kind find.

What, they think the entire grain category just *poofed* into existence the instant people realized that they could plant seeds on purpose and harvest the results later?

Also, any self-respecting hunter-gatherer knows where to find lots of tubers. Not to mention nuts, mushrooms, the occasional clutch of eggs, and even honey, if you can figure out how to get it without being stung. This NeanderThin thing sounds more like a chimpanzee diet

I totally love everyone’s examples of fattie animals but a person could shut that down by saying they shouldn’t be fat and are only fat because they live in an environment where they get food from humans, which is “unnatural.” I don’t buy that, I’m just saying.

On the other hand, I wonder what we do with the criteria “fat” when it comes to animals. We assess animals by what is average or some otherwise normal/typical range for that species. So is a panda bear fat? Well….um….aren’t all panda bears kind of fat? Wouldn’t a skinny panda bear be abnormal/undernourished?

slythwolf – somewhere among my many books on the Pacific Northwest is one that describes the Coast Salish natives’ eating habits in some detail. They’re popularly regarded as almost entirely living on seafood, but various types of tuber and, yes, wild rice formed a substantial part of their diet, as well as berries and the rest.

Their word for the rather meagre time of year we’re in right now roughly translates as ‘time when your belly sticks to your spine (from hunger)’. Whatever size hunter-gatherers may be, they don’t idealize thinness.

Sorry to go just a wee way off topic – but the comments on the sites cited above about the possible origin of the Venus of Willendorf play into that crap about ‘thin cavemen’. From reading them it seems academics think the figure is ‘exaggerated’ and probably pregnant. I beg to differ – she looks a hell of a lot like my 130-odd kilo, 1.63 metre self. The way the breasts and belly hang, the way the thighs sit, even the extra fatty ‘covering’ between her legs. She looks like me. Which means there may well have been at least 1 fat woman… the model.

While she might have been exagerrated and possibly “pregnant”, this does not change two facts: first, she was fat to begin with, no woman would get that shape only from pregnancy, come on – these are REAL curves of a true Shapeling ;) And secondly, the cavepeople carved and painted things connected with worship, cult – Venus of Willendorf is a sculpture symbolizing fertility, health, and even if they didn’t look like that a lot, they sure considered this kind of appearance beautiful and desired – a symbol of feminine power to create life, provide warmth and safety to her man and children.
The cavemen were wiser than the majority of modern people, I’d say *lol*

thegirlfrommarz:I saw a lionness in Tanzania who had COMPLETELY porked out on a baby zebra and had a belly practically touching the ground – I bet the other lionnesses were lying on the rocks judging her.

I have (sadly) heard this kind of logic before, but it’s often been in the form of “How many people at Auschwitz were fat, huh???” I mean, are we seriously supposed to emulate people near death? I mean, I guess idiots often think that women should, but how on earth that has become an acceptable implication is really beyond me.

I, for one, am kind of happy about the technological and medical progress humans have made since those caveman days. Regardless of their size, obviously. Yeeeeessssh

I saw the biggest, fattest bluejay I ever saw last week. He had the roundest, whitest belly! And it wasn’t feather fluffing, because it’s quite warm out. Someone’s been hitting the birdseed pretty hard, eh? Maybe he should go on a diet so he can feel virtuous while he suffers through the cold this winter!